New Perfume Review La Curie Geist- Sharp Objects

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One of the things about the independent perfumers is they can follow their vision. They can interpret a favorite theme in multiple ways. As an observer I can sometimes see a theme that isn’t actually there. I can impose my perspective using scant clues. Which is what I have done with perfumer Lesli Wood.

Almost five years ago I was introduced to her through the perfume La Curie Incendo. It was a mystical inverted pyramid style of perfume. I took a line from the card which accompanied the sample which had “Fire walk with me” on it. That comes from the television series Twin Peaks. Readers of my Sunday column know how much I like it. As I wrote about that I assumed Ms. Wood shared my enjoyment of the show. At the end of the review I said I was going to be wearing it on the first night Twin Peaks returned a few months later. I did which only reinforced my thinking.

Lesli Wood

Just after the New Year Ms. Wood offered me an opportunity to catch up with her perfumery over the last five years. She sent me a sample set of six new perfumes. I was once again taken back to the thought there is a lot of Twin Peaks in the way she makes perfume. She adores the smoke which hangs in the trees of the Pacific Northwest which shows up consistently. She also can go in a fascinating odd tangent as she does with Odyssey. This is the smell of molded vinyl. She is not interested in conforming to they typical norms. The one from this set of six which really connected with me is La Curie Geist.

Ms. Wood’s use of smoky materials is remarkable. Many perfumers get the balance all wrong. In everything I’ve tried from her she knows how to achieve a balance by using just the right quantities. In Geist, the source of the smoke comes from a leather accord. What surrounds it is a host of sharply scented interrogators.

Before the leather arrives, Geist begins with black hemlock and pine. The terpenes of the pine cut across the acerbic vegetal scent of the hemlock. They act as crossed sabers atop a field of newly tanned leather. The pungency of an ink accord inscribes that milieu. She is using an accord which reminds me strongly of those old cartridge fountain pens I had as a child. The nib bites into the leather as it writes. The base is a fantastic grounding accord of geosmin reviving the scent of moist soil. As if this was a found object deep in the mysterious woods.

Geist has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.

If you are looking for a new perfume experience and smokiness doesn’t scare you off La Curie is a brand you should consider. I am going to make much more of an effort to stay up to date with her work from now on. It takes a sharp mind to make a perfume consisting of sharp objects.

Disclosure: This review is based on samples provided by La Curie.

Mark Behnke

Colognoisseur 2016 Year-End Review Part 1- Overview

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2016 will probably go down as a pivotal year in the perfume business. As an observer of much of the field this year I have seen change in almost every place I can see. Which leads me to believe it is also taking place behind the scenes where I am not able to know the entire story. Change like this can be unsettling which has made for some worrying trends but overall I think it has contributed to another excellent year. I smelled a little less this year than last year; 680 new perfumes versus 2015’s 686. Surprisingly the amount of new releases has also plateaued with 1566 new releases in 2016 versus 1676 last year. Maybe we have defined the amount of new perfume the market can bear. Over the next three days I will share my thoughts on the year coming to an end.

We are told in Ecclesiastes, or by The Byrds if you prefer; “To every thing there is a season” and so it is in perfume as the season of the Baby Boomers has ended and the Millennials have taken over. This younger generation is now larger, has more discretionary income, and is spending more on perfume than the Boomers are per multiple sources. While the public at large was made aware of it this year the industry could see the change coming a year, or more, prior. What that meant for 2016 as far as fragrance went was every corporate perfume entity was on a fishing expedition to see if they could be the one who lured this group of consumers towards them. The drive for this is huge because lifelong brand loyalties can be formed right now within this group. Certainly, the enduring trends of the next few years in fragrance will be determined by where they spend their money. All of that has made 2016 fascinating because at the end of the year that answer is no clearer than it was at the beginning. The prevailing themes, based on what was provided to them, is they want lighter in sillage and aesthetic, gourmand, and different. That last category is the ephemeral key I think. The brand which can find them in the place where they Periscope, Snapchat, and Instagram is going to have an advantage.

Christine Nagel (l.) and Olivier Polge

There was also generational change taking place at two of the most prestigious perfume brands, Hermes and Chanel. The new in-house perfumers for both took full control in 2016. Christine Nagel released Hermes Eau du Rhubarbe Ecarlate and Galop D’Hermes. Olivier Polge released Chanel Boy and Chanel No. 5 L’Eau. This shows both talented artists know how to take an existing brand aesthetic and make it their own.

Cecile Zarokian, Quentin Bisch, Luca Maffei (l. to r.)

The next generation of perfumers exemplified by Cecile Zarokian, Quentin Bisch, and Luca Maffei loomed large this year. Mme Zarokian did thirteen new releases in 2016 all of them distinctively delightful from the re-formulation of Faths Essentials Green Water to the contemporary Oriental Puredistance Sheiduna. M. Bisch brilliantly reinvented one of the masterpieces of perfume in Thierry Mugler Angel Muse. Sig. Maffei released ten new fragrances with Masque Milano L’Attesa, Laboratorio Olfattivo MyLO, and Jul et Mad Secrets du Paradis Rouge showcasing his range. 

There were also fascinating collaborations this year. Antonio Gardoni and Bruno Fazzolari contributed Cadavre Exquis an off-beat gourmand. Josh Meyer and Sam Rader conspired to create a Northern California Holiday bonfire in Dasein Winter Nights. Victor Wong the owner and creative director of Zoologist Perfumes was able to get the most out of independent perfumers like Ellen Covey in Bat and Sarah McCartney in Macaque.

Some of the independent perfumers I look to surprisingly released perfumes which did not please me. Thankfully there were new ones who stepped up to fill in the gap. Lesli Wood Peterson of La Curie, Ludmila and Antoine Bitar of Ideo Parfumeurs, and Eugene & Emrys Au of Auphorie did that. Chritsti Meshell of House of Matriarch made an ambitious economic move into Nordstrom while producing two of my favorites from her in Albatross and Kazimi.

The mainstream sector had another strong year as the mall continues to have diamonds hidden amongst the dross. In 2016 that meant Elizabeth & James Nirvana Bourbon, Alford & Hoff No. 3, SJP Stash, Prada Infusion de Mimosa, Thierry Mugler Angel Muse, and Chanel No. 5 L’Eau were there to be found.

If the beginning of the year was all about rose the overall year was a renaissance for neroli perfumes. Jean-Claude Ellena’s swan song for Hermes; Eau de Neroli Dore. The afore mentioned Green Water along with Jo Malone Basil & Neroli and Hiram Green Dilettante showed the versatility of the note.

The acquisition of niche brands continued with Estee Lauder buying By Kilian and L’Oreal doing the same with Atelier Cologne. The acquisitions of Frederic Malle and Le Labo, two years ago, seem to have been positive steps for both brands. Especially seeing Le Labo in my local mall getting such a positive reception made me believe that if the good niche brands can become more available the consumer will appreciate the difference.

Tomorrow I will name my Perfume, Perfumer, Creative Director, and Brand of the Year

The next day I will reveal my Top 25 New Releases of 2016.

Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review La Curie Incendo- Black Lodge Extrait

One of my favorite television shows was Twin Peaks. Over two seasons in 1990 and 1991 director David Lynch introduced us to the community of Twin Peaks, Washington through the eyes of FBI agent Dale Cooper. On the surface it was a show about solving the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer. Underneath it was a show about the soft spots in reality. Beware what can make its way into our world. Agent Cooper as he uncovers the secrets of Laura Palmer and Twin Peaks learns about the Black Lodge; one of those interdimensional soft spots. A recent perfume release got me thinking about all of this; La Curie Incendo.

lesli wood peterson photo rachel miller

Lesli Wood Peterson (photo: Rachel Miller)

La Curie is the independent brand from Lesli Wood Peterson based in Arizona. She has been working on her line of fragrances since 2013. Incendo is her fourth release. I think Ms. Peterson also shares an affection for Twin Peaks because in the card which accompanies Incendo the first line is “fire walk with me”. Early on in Twin Peaks we hear that phrase from the one-armed man. It would come up again and again. Looking at Ms. Peterson’s website there is no mention of the television show but I couldn’t shake it from my imagination.

On the website Incendo is described as “an escape from our modern world into a residual memory of our primordial souls and archaic trappings.” Except I didn’t get archaic and primordial. Ms. Peterson had me thinking closer to mystical rituals. There are all the components of ritualistic smoke based acts infused with outré elements combining for a weirdly textured fragrance from top to base.

Incendo opens on the smell of the forest of the Pacific Northwest; pine needles and cedar. From here smoke rises up as she seemingly employs most of the smoky raw materials available to a perfumer. This is a tricky balance as there are many, many perfumes where the smoke overwhelms. A testament to Ms. Peterson’s patience in striking the right formula is the smoke swirls throughout the development of Incendo but at no time does it take over. As incense, sage, cypriol, and vetiver provide the olfactory haze there is something else playing in the back ground. Ms. Peterson describes it as “dark skies” in her note list. It has that simmering ozonic potential on the leading edge of a storm front. The crackle of the lightning and the rumble of the thunder are present. This provides an off-kilter kind of contrast to the smoke as it almost seems like we are smelling things in reverse. Which is how the man in the Black Lodge speaks; backwards.

Incendo has 12-14 hour longevity and moderate sillage.

Twin Peaks is returning to the airwaves in 2017. I am very excited for that to happen. In 1990 I probably didn’t think about associating perfume with my watching. Next year when the music comes up I am sure I will be wearing Incendo to carry me to the Black Lodge to see the next chapter.

Disclosure; this review was based on a bottle I purchased.

Mark Behnke

Editor's note: Incendo won the 2016 Art and Olfaction Award in the Artisan category.